Layoffs and recruiting at the same time, what kind of current situation does the new energy vehicle industry's creation of talent "Ship of Theseus" reflect?

In the past few months, layoffs have become a high-frequency word in China's auto industry. Traditional joint ventures are laying off employees, new forces are laying off employees, and even industry giant Tesla is laying off employees.

So far, more than a dozen brands including GAC Toyota, NIO, Tesla, Volkswagen, GAC Honda, Feifan, Zhiji, and Ideal have announced plans to lay off employees. In addition, some supply chain manufacturers have also begun to lay off employees.

However, while laying off employees, many automakers are still hiring aggressively. Take BYD as an example. In 2023 alone, BYD hired 30,000 fresh college graduates. In addition, Geely, Changan and other manufacturers are also expanding recruitment. Weilai and Ideal were on the hot search list some time ago because of a large number of layoffs, but now they have started recruiting again. Ideal Auto has 3,257 recruitment positions, and Weilai has also added 1,613 social recruitment positions.

The "Guidelines for Manufacturing Talent Development Planning" released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology predicts that by 2025, the talent gap in energy-saving and new energy vehicles is expected to reach 1.03 million.

While laying off employees, they are also hiring, and the recruitment gap is quite large, as large as one million. This can only mean one thing, that China's new energy vehicle industry has entered a new era, rapidly replacing old with new, and building a "Ship of Theseus" to rebuild the personnel structure.

The ancient Greek philosopher Plutarch once raised a question: If the wood on Theseus's ship was gradually replaced until all the wood was no longer the original wood, would the ship still be the same ship? This is the famous Theseus paradox.

Laying off employees while hiring is actually a unique phenomenon in the development period of China's new energy vehicle industry, which is equivalent to constantly replacing parts for a fighter jet in flight. So, after a large number of personnel have been replaced, will China's new energy vehicles still have the same bones and skin as before?

Nissan's Changzhou plant, which specializes in manufacturing Qashqai, has recently stopped production, and many employees have begun to move to the new energy industry. On the other hand, the sales volume of domestic manufacturers is constantly expanding. Recently, news broke online that employees of GAC Honda were scrambling for layoffs. On the one hand, this is because the layoff compensation is high, and on the other hand, the employees are also anxious to work in the new energy vehicle factory.

Layoffs are not good news, but they are not the end of the world. They are a normal industrial flow, flowing from high to low. New energy vehicles now need a new type of talent. Take NIO as an example. The positions it is recruiting involve software, automation and other aspects. These positions are full of the characteristics of the times and also put forward higher requirements for practitioners themselves.

In fact, Volkswagen in Germany is also doing something similar, and it has caused quite a stir.

Former Volkswagen CEO Diess had a plan: to lay off some employees related to traditional fuel vehicles and use the saved expenses to recruit talents related to new energy vehicles. However, this plan was strongly opposed by the Volkswagen Union, which became the fuse for Diess' resignation.

China's annual passenger car sales volume exceeds 20 million, making it the world's largest single automobile market. Logically, there should be a relatively large number of talents, but why is there such a large talent gap among new energy vehicle manufacturers?

This is because new energy vehicles and traditional fuel vehicles are two different automotive ecosystems. In the era of fuel vehicles, a large number of talents are researching engines and gearboxes, but many new energy vehicles do not need these at all.

Similarly, it is hard to imagine that fuel vehicle manufacturers will employ a large number of software system talents because they do not need to.

New energy vehicles are mainly characterized by electrification, intelligence, networking and sharing. It is difficult for employees who are used to the concept of pure fuel vehicles to make the skill change in a short period of time.

In order to meet their own development needs, new energy vehicle manufacturers need to start from scratch in terms of talent training. In fact, there is not much talent available in the era of fuel vehicles.

It is precisely because of this reality that layoffs and recruitment are happening simultaneously. In a nutshell, during the transition from fuel vehicles to new energy vehicles, conflicts over manpower will not stop for a long time in the future, and may even coexist for a long time.

Authoritative data shows that domestic new energy vehicle sales in January-May 2024 reached 3.895 million units, a year-on-year increase of 32.5%. In the foreseeable future, domestic new energy vehicles will not stop moving forward. New energy vehicle manufacturers recruit people to meet immediate needs and to reserve talents. These are all necessary.

China's new energy vehicle industry has developed too rapidly, and it has only really emerged and become familiar to consumers in the past two or three years. In other words, even if universities began to recruit students majoring in new energy three years ago, they are only now starting to work, and the supply of such talent cannot meet demand in the short term.

Therefore, the talent gap in the domestic new energy vehicle industry is unlikely to disappear in the short term. As the penetration rate of new energy continues to increase and the market scale continues to expand, the talent gap will inevitably expand.

At present, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China is less than 50%. Based on the annual sales volume of 20 million, there will be at least 10 million net increases in the next few years, which will bring a large number of employment opportunities. After the sales volume increases, there will also be a large demand for talents in sales, maintenance, insurance and other related links.

In addition, China is now the world's largest automobile exporter. The export volume will increase further in the future, and the proportion of new energy vehicles will become higher and higher, which also requires a large number of talents to support it.

The automobile industry is a pillar industry in industrialized countries, and China is no exception. The automobile industry provides more than 5 million direct jobs in Japan. The scale of China's automobile industry is several times that of Japan. If the Chinese automobile market completely shifts to new energy, guess how many jobs it will provide?

For China's new energy vehicle industry, layoffs are not an end, but another beginning.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.